


A Study in Love: Part 2

by Rearviewdreamer



Series: A Study in Love (Sherlock au) [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Detective Louis, Doctor/Detective Harry, Kid Fic, M/M, Mystery, Sherlock AU, me entertaining me, more crime scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-03-24 21:15:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13819584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rearviewdreamer/pseuds/Rearviewdreamer
Summary: Life for Louis was already incredible and largely unbelievable for him with his new husband he never dreamed of one day having, but it seems the universe isn't quite finished throwing him curveballs or surprising him with people he can't live without.





	1. Chapter 1

_Monday. Two years and 3 weeks later. 9:51am. The corner of Park and Victoria Street. London._

“So, take a right here onto Park,” Louis tells their cab driver, humming when the stray hand resting on his thigh travels up the back of his shirt instead and the warmest pair of lips in the world land against his neck. He leans into it, humming when his earlobe receives a playful nip, almost making him forget where the hell they’re going. “S-Sorry. Er- Just keep going until we get to 1st, make a right on 5th, left on Maple, and the registrar’s office is the second building on the right. Can’t miss it,” Louis rushes to say, finally turning to his fiancé who hasn’t been able to keep his hands or mouth off him since they woke up with wide open schedules this morning, decided this was going to be the big day, and then proceeded to text everyone they know to announce the big news. “What on Earth am I supposed to do with you? You do know that you can be _highly_ distracting sometimes?”

Which is the fucking understatement of understatements. There are times when Louis can hardly string two thoughts together because of Harry, which he of course finds _hilarious_.

“Yeah, I know,” he laughs like always, his eyes shining just as bright as they did six months ago the morning Louis asked him to be his permanent flatmate and partner, in work and in life. It only took Louis about an eighth of a second to realize what his sleep-soaked brain had proposed is the general structure and framework for a marriage. However, it didn’t even take Harry that long to give an emphatic and resounding _yes_.

“Ah. So, you _are_ aware you’re a complete menace,” Louis teases.

“And in a few minutes, you get to deal with me and all my distractions forever, till death do us part. Lucky you.”

Louis feels nothing but lucky when Harry finally kisses him, and it has been that way since the very first time it happened. He never thought he’d be the person sitting in the back of a cab with his best friend in the whole world, on the way to marry him and spend the rest of their lives together. For a long time, it never even occurred to Louis to want those kinds of things, and then Harry happened. He burst into Louis’ life with all his scented candles and his beautiful, warm heart and now Louis can’t imagine his life without him. Bonsai trees and all.

 

They arrive at ten o’clock on the dot right when the building opens, and their witness pulls up in a cab right behind theirs.

“Lotts, you’re here! So glad you could make it.”

“A little more warning would’ve been nice,” she mumbles as she steps out onto the pavement. She takes one look at the two of them and starts fussing over them immediately, using her fingers to tame Harry’s bed-head curls and wiping dried toothpaste from Louis’ jaw. “What on Earth? You didn’t even shower, did you?” she tuts, picking at the endless supply of wiry grey hairs stuck to their clothes courtesy of their neighborhood stray turned housed cat, Julep, the single most useless creature on the fucking planet that Harry insists on keeping around. “Jesus, what’d you two do? Roll out of bed and just decide to get married today?”

He and Harry are both beaming from ear to ear when they lock eyes because, yeah, they did.

Inside the registrar’s office twenty minutes later, Louis’ so excited he can hardly even stand still long enough to listen to their officiant’s speech about the beauty of love and commitment and the treasured gift that is a life-long partner. Louis doesn’t mean to be rude and hurry her along, but she’s wasting her breath.

“I know,” Louis smiles across from his fiancé.

“ _Oh,_ ” their officiant blinks at him. “Er- O-Okay. Yes, of course. Well, maybe now would be a good time to exchange your own vows.”

“We already did,” Harry informs her with a tight squeeze to Louis’ hands. “This morning.”

It was just under an hour ago that Louis promised love him and care for him unconditionally, and Harry promised to walk with Louis through every adventure they may have together and also to keep their pantry stocked with Yorkshire for the rest of their days. Louis would’ve settled for Harry simply being his husband, but bringing Yorkshire into the deal sealed it completely. And now, Louis’ just ready for it all to start.

“Right, could you just skip to the end?” Louis asks, sighing when Harry gives him a look in reprimand and he feels the sharp toe of his sister’s shoe jab into his calf. “Could you just skip to the end _, please_?” he corrects, earning himself a smile of approval from his future husband and the polite removal of the glossy shoe pressing into his flesh.

“I mean, I guess I _can_ ,” the officiant frowns. “If that’s really what you two-”

“It is,” he and Harry confirm in unison over the sound of their phones vibrating together in the way that always gets adrenaline pumping through their veins.

“Everybody freeze!” Louis shouts mostly at the officiant who now looks even more confused than before as her script papers go flying out of alarm.

“ _Why_? What now?” she shouts back.

“It’s just Liam replying to you,” Lottie informs them all after a quick peek at their screens. “He sends his love and congratulations from everyone at the station on your big day. False alarm.”

“Aww,” Harry coos. “How sweet.”

“Who’s Liam?”

“Our close friend and boss,” Harry answers, making Louis scoff aloud.

“Liam Payne is _not_ my boss. Speak for yourself,” he mutters over the sound of Harry cackling.

“Alright, some of us who _do_ have bosses need to get back to work soon, so can we please focus here?” Lottie interrupts.

She has a point. He and Harry have a whole lifetime to debate over their chain of command… as soon as they’re actually married.

“Right. Sorry. We were skipping ahead to the end,” Louis reminds the room. “Rings?” His sister carefully places their wedding bands in the center of each of their respective palms and Louis feels a new wave of excitement wash over him. “Perfect. Okay, now, _unfreeze_.”

“Do you, Louis, take Harry to be your lawfully wedded husband?” their officiant asks, looking quite put out like she usually has a lot more to add to that question. The heart-shaped pendant attached to her dress and her own recently cleaned wedding band from approximately two decades ago proudly glittering on her finger says she could go on forever.

“Yes, I do,” he answers, taking great pleasure in sliding Harry’s ring onto his finger and making his face light up.

“And do you, Harry, take Louis to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do. Always,” Harry smiles as he quickly copies Louis’ movements by sliding his ring onto his finger. Besides an antique pocket watch he likes to carry from time to time, this is the only piece of jewelry Louis has ever owned. He can’t wait to wear it every day.

“By the power vested in me, I now pronounce that you are joined in holy marriage.”

If Louis’ not mistaken, and he _never_ is, that sounds a lot like he just got himself a spouse.

“Really? It’s done? We’re really married?” Harry checks, not even waiting for an answer before pulling Louis into the kiss they’ve been destined for since the day they met.

It still hasn’t sunken in when they make it home to Baker Street, but it’s getting easier and easier to accept with every smile and kiss that he and Harry share on the way there. They charge up the stairs together in a race, stopping in their tracks once they reach the second floor and see the beautiful display of flowers hanging around their threshold.

_‘Congrats, boys! Wishing you the best and happiest marriage. Love you both. – Mrs. Hudson.’_

“That was kind of her. And quick,” Louis grins at the little hand-written card stuck in their door. “We should run back down and say thank you.” It’s a suggestion Louis would’ve thought his husband would be in full support of, but when he moves to head back down the stairs he’s stopped by Harry’s arm snaking around his waist and his lips pressed just behind Louis’ ear in the heart-stuttering way that only Harry can.

“We just got married a few minutes ago,” he points out as if Louis wasn’t there too. “You really want to go chat with Mrs. Hudson right now, babe? Excuse me. _Husband_ ,” he corrects with a grin. Just the word leaves Louis’ skin buzzing and tingling all over as if it’s a bolt of lightning.

He abandons the card he’s holding to let them inside their flat, kicking the door shut and pressing Harry against it the moment it’s closed. Mrs. Hudson can wait.

*

Louis has never laughed harder than he is right now watching Harry use the last few rays of sunset to attempt the third movement of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9 with a straight face. Not that he had any luck whatsoever playing the first movement. Or the second. Or could even read past the first measure for that matter, but it takes a certain level of confidence to sit stark naked in the middle of bed butchering one of the greatest pieces known to man until it sounds identical to a cat being skinned alive. Maybe that’s the reason Julep tore out of here so fast a while ago. In that case, Harry should play more often.

His husband finishes his solo with a flourish of his bow hand and a giant smile that just makes Louis stifle another laugh into his hand.

“Alright, how’d I do? And, be brutal.” 

“ _Like you just were to my ears_?” Louis mutters, not even flinching when Harry predictably pinches him for the sass. “Well, your interpretation of it was just _such_ an innovative approach, you know?” Beethoven is probably turning over in his grave. “ _But_ , besides your lack of timing, phrasing, form, and, uh, virtually _anything_ to do with actual skill involving the violin, there must’ve been over a dozen C sharps written in that sonata and I think you managed to play at least one of them on purpose, so, cheers! Full marks,” Louis praises him, making Harry cackle into the shower of congratulatory kisses he receives.

“It sounded awful!”

“Absolutely dreadful. But, I loved every second of it.” Which, oddly enough, isn’t even a lie.  

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, babe, but I think next time I should just stick to the classics.”

“You mean _Hot Cross Buns_? _”_

“ _Exactly_. And _The Birthday Song_ , but I only break that one out once per year,” Harry jokes, gladly relinquishing the violin to its true owner, sitting back in anticipation of hearing how the sonata is supposed to sound.

Louis begins it with a deep breath, slowly sinking into the intricacies of the melody as he plays the piece by heart, but he doesn’t even make it through half of the first movement before the heat from Harry’s gaze has his heart pounding and his fingers fumbling through notes they have played a billion times before. And for someone who’s supposed to be listening and taking notes on technique, Harry only seems to be interested in the visual aspects of his performance. More specifically, the endless expanses of Louis’ bare skin and taut muscles flexing with every pull of the bow across the strings. Louis doesn’t even make it to the coda before his instrument is plucked out of his grip, the sheet music gets pushed to the side, and they’re falling back against the pillows.

This is all they’ve been doing all day. Honeymooning in their own little bubble in the best way they know how which has mostly consisted of marathon sex all over their flat interrupted by the occasional food break featuring Harry dancing around their kitchen while simultaneously singing every lyric of every song Shania Twain has ever written; a unique set of talents that would’ve driven a much younger Louis up the fucking wall, but somehow now makes his heart beat for his husband a bit more than it already did in a phenomenon that seems to take place every single day.

That old familiar thrum of excitement sizzles through Louis’ veins when his husband licks into his mouth and eagerly hooks a leg over Louis’ hips to bring them closer. Harry sits himself up and Louis’ hands begin to travel the distance of the strong pair of thighs straddled over him, his latest memory of Harry riding him on their kitchen floor earlier today getting interrupted by the loud rattling sound their phones create when they vibrate on the bedside table in unison. It’s tough to focus on anything besides how incredibly sexy Harry looks at the moment, however Louis’ eyes still longingly drift in the direction of his phone and then back up at his husband laughing and fondly shaking his head at him.

Besides a few thank you texts to family and friends wishing them congratulations, they’ve done quite well with their promise to stay away from screens today so they can just focus on each other. Between Harry running his blog which is now as popular of a read as most tabloids, him also occasionally working at St. Bartholomew as a temporary fill-in whenever needed, and Louis religiously following the city’s daily police reports in-between cases that sometimes take weeks to solve, it hasn’t been easy taking a whole day off. Liam already congratulated them once. He wouldn’t contact them again today if it wasn’t something big and Louis wouldn’t be Louis if the promise of a shiny new case didn’t thrill him just as much as the thought of another round of married marathon sex with his beautiful and incredibly understanding husband who now looks just as curious as him to know what’s happened outside of their little bubble.

“Well, go on, then,” Harry grins. “Check to see what he wants.”

Louis doesn’t have to be told twice, already greedily reading over all the details of their fresh case.

“New hot-shot serial killer in town? You’ve got that look.”

“No, not this time,” Louis shakes his head. “Violent robbery. Some gift shop across town.”

Harry’s brow furrows at that like perhaps he heard Louis wrong. “Hang on a second. Liam needs you because someone broke into a _shop_? What’s so special about that?”

The same part that has Louis itching to get up and go explore the crime scene the way he would if it _had_ been a new hot-shot serial killer for them to take down.

“They didn’t take the money.”

*

They were married hours ago, and yet he and Harry are still being showered with congratulations from everyone when they arrive at the crime scene hand in hand as always. However, things don’t feel quite the same as they did. The haunting presence of the ambulance parked across the street and the coroner parked right behind it casts a darkness over the night that didn’t exist back home inside their flat so they let go for now, but they still stick close by one another.

Liam notices them the moment they step through the forced doors of the shop whose double security locks obviously did a shit job of keeping out intruders. There are other signs around them that something terrible happened here like the crystal vases that shattered from being knocked off their shelves, the faint shoeprints by the door, and the hairline crack in the corner of one of the jewelry display cases that no one besides Louis has seemed to notice, and of course, the stilled body everyone’s crowded around just behind the register, about which Liam was absolutely right, because it hasn’t been touched.

“Hey there, you two,” he grins at them with exhaustion clear in his face, though he looks no less happy to see them together than he always does. “Let’s see the rings,” he demands, taking hold of Harry’s hand without hesitation and Louis’ once he offers it up, congratulating them once again on finally making it official.

Louis knows he shouldn’t given the circumstances, but he can’t help but grin like an idiot because his and Harry’s marriage is definitely something worth celebrating and also to be proud of. Still, at the moment, their attention should be more focused on the disaster of a gift shop they’re standing in and figuring out what the hell happened.

“Listen, I’m sorry to bring you two in on such a special day like this, but we could really use your help.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re happy to,” Harry assures him. “What exactly were they after?”

“That’s the thing we can’t figure out,” Liam sighs. “Obviously, this wasn’t just some random homicide. Someone was poking around looking for _something_ , but from what we can tell nothing valuable was taken.”

“And of course, nobody saw or heard anything so the killer vanished into thin air,” Louis adds since that’s the general criteria for whenever he and Harry are needed.

“Well, there’s a security camera, but it was tampered with, and it seems the only other person here at the time was the woman’s granddaughter. They lived together just above the shop so she probably heard the commotion and called the police. If anybody can tell us anything it’d be her, but she’s not talking to anyone right now. She’s scared out of her mind. Can’t be any more than five, we’re guessing.”

Louis hears the pained, slow breath his husband releases learning that there was a child present throughout all this. Overall, Louis has never had much luck getting witnesses to give reliable information regarding a case, let alone kids. And this girl is so young that he’s not very optimistic that whatever she does happen to remember will be of any use. She probably hasn’t even started school.

“Where is she, Li?”

It’s the question Louis himself was just about to ask before Harry beat him to it.

“She’s still up in her room, I’m sure. She won’t go with any of us. I think having so many officers around freaks her out, so we’re waiting on someone from social services.”

No sooner are the words out of Liam’s mouth does Louis feel his husband leave his side, only pausing to drop a kiss to Louis’ temple and grab a stuffed teddy bear from one of the shelves before disappearing up the steps.

Louis’ not sure how, but eventually Harry managed to coax Mia out of hiding and even earned her trust enough to get her to open up about what happened. Apparently, she didn’t physically see anything, but she definitely heard it and realized she needed to call the number on the fridge for help which is as much as anyone can really expect of a person who has only four years under her belt. Harry didn’t press her for more. He just sat with her flipping through picture books in her room until the social worker arrived to take her away to a care facility for the night. Louis assumed that would be a good thing, but the expression on Harry’s face while watching them go said otherwise.

“What’s going to happen to her now?” Harry asks once Mia’s gone and everybody else at the crime scene has started to clear out too. Liam’s eyes soften in sympathy at his question like perhaps Harry’s not going to like the answer, so Louis reaches down to take his hand again regardless of their environment or who’s watching.

“Well, it depends. She can’t stay at that care facility forever. There really isn’t room. They said she lost her parents two years ago, so they assume her grandmother was the closest living relative she had. If that’s true and if social services can’t find another relative or at least a suitable guardian willing to take her in for the time being, unfortunately...”

“Into the system,” Harry finishes for him in an even tone that says he already knew that’s where this was going.

“She’ll be well taken care of, Haz. And, a good family could adopt her one day. You never know.”

Liam’s optimism about Mia’s future is nice and a good effort on his part, but even Louis knows what he just said isn’t likely. He also knows his husband will worry for that little girl for the next hundred years and hate that he can’t change her fate. It’s the one downfall of having a heart as incredibly big as Harry’s, but it’s also one of the things that Louis loves most about him.

“Babe, you were so great with her tonight,” Louis says, hoping to lift his spirits just a bit. “You did all that you could, Haz, and she really liked talking with you.”

“Lou’s right, mate,” Liam joins in with a firm squeeze to Harry’s shoulder. “You saved the day.”

Harry nods and grins a bit in response to their praise, but Louis can’t help but notice that his eyes don’t seem to agree.

*

It’s much later that night when Louis wakes up with his arms empty and the only deep, even breaths in the room coming from Julep, curled up and fast asleep in the space where Harry should be. Louis pads out of their bedroom in search of him after realizing the sheets aren’t warm enough for him to have just made a quick trip to the bathroom or to the kitchen for water. But, at half past two in the morning, there are only so many places he can go.

Louis finds his missing bedmate in the living room of all places, sat up in the armchair watching the moon hanging over the view before him. Its pale light illuminates his face, still heavily burdened the way it was when they got home and Harry announced he was going to bed. Louis had figured he would still be a little down after they left the gift shop. He always is after leaving troubling crime scenes, especially ones involving death. Turning in so early wasn’t exactly the exciting wedding night they had planned for themselves which is more than fine after the beyond amazing day they spent together, however, seeing his husband this upset wasn’t part of the plan either. Louis has never felt things as deeply or as heavily as his husband, but he would give anything to be able to take some of that sadness away from him.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Louis says, taking the way Harry grabs his hand and just holds it to his chest as a yes. “Is it nightmares again?” he asks, even though Harry hasn’t had one of those in ages.

“No,” his husband shakes his head, his voice filled with more determination and certainty than Louis was expecting from someone with dried tear tracks down his cheeks. “I want to bring her here,” he says quietly. “Just for a little while.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who his husband is referring to. And, Louis can’t say he’s surprised that Harry would want to open up their home to a little girl who doesn’t have one. Harry wouldn’t be Harry if he didn’t.

“I called Liam and we can be her temporary guardians as long as social services approve,” he continues softly. “I just don’t want her bouncing around different homes and facilities until they find another relative. I’d rather her be here. With us. This can be her home for now.”

It’s a lot to take in imagining another person living here with them and wondering how on Earth they could make something like that work, but his husband wants this, it’s important to him, and Louis will be damned if he doesn’t get it. Everybody knows Louis does this job mainly for the rush. Adrenaline is the bulk of what he gets out of it, unlike his husband who doesn’t mind a bit of chaos now and then as well, but ultimately, just wants to help people. And tonight, that person is Mia. 

“Okay,” Louis agrees, watching his husband blink up at him in genuine disbelief of how easily the answer came as if Louis would ever, could ever say no to him. “We’ll call social services first thing in the morning,” he promises. “Done.” Harry thanks him unnecessarily and Louis tells him so, hearing his husband let out a big sigh of relief when Louis drops a kiss to the top of his head. “Come on. Let’s go back to bed,” Louis tries, but Harry hardly budges when he tries guiding them in that direction.

“Wait,” he whispers, his grip on Louis’ hand tightening as he holds it closer to his chest. “Promise me you’ll catch whoever did this?”

As if he’d ever walk away from a case that’s unsolved or the opportunity to make Harry proud.

“You have my word, love,” Louis assures his husband. “Done.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Wednesday. 11:58am. 221b Baker Street. London._

“I still don’t understand what anybody would need even half of this shit for,” Niall frowns as he reaches into the duffle bag between them and hands over the gladiator sword along with the ninja stars that Harry occasionally finds jammed into their living room walls during particularly tricky cases for his husband. Just like all the bullets, ax blades, and throwing knives his husband also uses to stress relieve, all of which were quickly dislodged, collected, and relocated to the safety of Niall’s flat yesterday afternoon before the social worker came in to inspect the place. By some miracle, they actually passed, which Harry largely attributes to the various floral paintings he begged Mrs. Hudson to let them borrow to hide the biggest holes from view and the kindness of their social worker who pretended to not see the others.

“I can see how some of these might look a little scary, but they’re mostly just for show,” Harry explains to their friend, taking great care in placing the razor sharp items inside the new weapons chest he bought off the old woman at the antique shop he visited just this morning. “They’re like little collectibles to him that help him think.” Highly strange and quirky little collectibles, but precious to Louis nonetheless.

Niall raises a dubious brow high toward the ceiling as he holds up a pair of medieval dungeon cuffs next.

“He thinks better while wearing _these_?”

Not really, but he thinks better with Harry blowing him while wearing them and vice versa. Niall goes to add them to the collection when Harry quickly snatches them up.

“Wait! Er- These aren’t really dangerous so I’ll just hang onto them.”

Harry tries to downplay the small blush, but he can feel his grin growing wider and wider under Niall’s confused gaze until he realizes _why_ the cuffs are staying out. He gags through a grimace, roughly scrubbing his palms over the carpet as if the cuffs are coated with invisible sex.

“ _Gross_.”

“Mmm, not really. We think they’re quite fun,” Harry chuckles. “You and Amanda are always welcome to try them out if-”

“Oh, no,” Niall stops him. “ _We_ already share meals, holidays, cases, and _my_ lab. I draw the line at sex toys.”

“Fair enough,” Harry concedes. “Though you should know, technically, dungeon cuffs were used to restrain criminals rather than lovers so they’re not exactly _toys_.” Harry could go on with his knowledge but he doesn’t, realizing he lost Niall somewhere around his casual mention of the word dungeon.

“It is absolutely terrifying how similar the two of you sound sometimes,” Niall snorts, though Harry doesn’t think that’s a _bad_ thing. Actually, he’s quite flattered to be lumped in with his remarkable better half. It’s a compliment.

They finish up a few minutes later and Harry smiles looking around at the mostly bare shelves and surfaces. With all the items that could potentially cause someone harm now safely tucked into the chest, Harry closes the top and locks it tight making their flat officially kid-proof. Or, as kid-proof as it’s ever going to get.

“I think we’re finally done,” he beams. “Now all that’s left is setting up the guest room for Mia.” A lot of her clothes have already been brought over. Harry just needs to organize them and add in the few cute things he just couldn’t resist buying for her during his shopping trip.

“I still can’t believe you two are really going to have a living, breathing _child_ staying here,” Niall shakes his head making Harry laugh just as hard as he has each time one of their loved ones has said that. Having a little girl live with them will definitely be an adjustment for them, probably more so for Louis than for Harry just like when they got a pet, but Harry thinks it’ll be great. Julep hops down from the back of the couch to perch himself on top of the chest instead as if he can hear Harry thinking about him. “To be completely honest, I’m still amazed _this_ guy has made it this far,” Niall continues, gesturing at the mess of bushy grey fur who refuses to let Harry stop petting him now that he has started. “Everyone figured his days were numbered the moment he and Lou met. Li and I gave it a week. Lottie an hour.”

“ _What?_ Of course not,” Harry laughs, though truly he had some of the same worries eight months ago the day he rescued the cute bedraggled stray from the rain and smuggled him into their building. “Lou and Julep get along great. Er…well, sort of,” Harry amends. He wouldn’t exactly call it a requited love considering his husband’s general dislike of being kissed, rubbed, kneaded, cuddled, snuggled, or sat on by anybody besides Harry, but Julep has yet to let that discourage him from trying. What’s most important is that he’s still alive and not a scraggly fur hat like Louis used to joke about turning him into, so _progress_.

Julep jumps down when the sound of the door handle jiggling makes everybody in the room look towards it. Louis walks in a moment later and Julep is right there to greet him as always, walking little figure eights around Louis’ feet as Louis stands perfectly still in the doorway. Change has never been his thing. He’s visibly a bit taken aback by the chest that wasn’t here when he left, but he’s taking its random appearance in their living room a lot better than the night he came home to a wet cat napping on the back of his armchair, so again, _progress_.

“Well, that’s my cue to leave,” Niall mutters, giving Harry a firm pat on the back as he stands and grabs his keys. “Good luck tonight you two and let me know if you need anything else! See you later! _Hug_ ,” he warns Louis right before trapping him in one so quick that he doesn’t even make a face.

Harry thanks their friend for all his help and waves him goodbye as he leaves, now standing up to greet his husband as well. “Hiya, babe,” he grins leaning in to connect their lips without any sort of warning at all; a divine privilege that only he has. Harry’s grin only widens when he feels Louis welcome his touch and immediately kiss him back. “Any new leads today? How’s Li?”

“Maybe. Too soon to tell, and he’s just peachy,” Louis reports letting his curiosity get the better of him as he peeks _around_ Harry at the ancient-looking box taking up the middle of their floor. “Um, sorry, but what the hell is that?”

“Oh, you mean this _old_ thing?” he jokes, only catching a hint of a fond eye roll from his husband who has been nothing but supportive of a situation that is clearly past his comfort level considering the only guests they’ve ever received are dinner guests who leave after an hour and typically bring over wine. “Well, babe, I just felt so bad about all your stuff having to be taken out of the flat and you’ve been such a good sport throughout all of this. I found this amazing chest today at the antiques shop so I thought maybe we could use it as storage? I had Niall bring over all your things, so now everything is back here where it belongs, Mia can still be safe while she’s with us, and everybody’s happy! It’s a win-win-win, don’t you think?” Louis’ eyes surely soften at him like it’s a triple win.

Harry hands his husband the key to his gift, anxiously watching him open it, take visual inventory of everything that’s supposed to be inside, and bite down on a smile when he fails to find one trigger or blade out of place.

“You’re the best,” Louis tells him, clearly satisfied with his surprise the way Harry knew he would be. “And the cuffs? Don’t those go in here too?” he asks once he notices them lying beside the chest instead of inside it with everything else.

“Well, they _could_ ,” Harry shrugs. “But, I figured we could just keep those out for now. You know...for _us,_ ” he clarifies making his husband sport a wicked grin to match his own.

“Good call.”

Harry had a feeling they might come in handy later. Or right now he supposes as Louis walks him to the couch with the cuffs in hand and drops to his knees without preamble. And sure, Harry still has a billion things to do before their guest arrives this evening and Louis has a billion and one since he’s pretty much flying solo on this case, but they’ve got a little time to kill. Plenty of it.

\----------------

A knock at the front door echoes through their flat just as Harry’s plugging in the bedside lamp he grabbed from Mia’s old room this afternoon along with pictures of her grandmother and her parents. He made time today to frame them and placed them right next to her bed that is all outfitted in butterflies and light green just like her other one was. This room now looks a lot different than it did back when it belonged to Harry. Not that he slept in here for very long after moving in, but he still feels a bit of nostalgia for it. Him staying here was never meant to be a permanent thing when Lottie found him scrolling through classified ads nearly three years ago. He was only going to stay here until he figured out his next move but that somehow turned into Harry realizing he already ended up right where he’s supposed to be, with the one person he was always meant to find. He just hopes Mia feels as at home here as he always has.

When he leaves the guest room, he finds Louis shuffling around outside of it looking about as anxious as Harry feels knowing there’s no turning back now.

“Ready?” Harry asks. He releases a deep breath not sure if he’s more nervous or excited. His husband nods in answer, offering Harry an encouraging grin in return.

“Of course, love. Ready whenever you are.”

His kind sentiment puts Harry at ease even though he knows it’s not entirely the truth. This process hasn’t exactly been easy, and yet Louis is still here and in full support of him just like he vowed to always do, making Harry even more proud to call Louis his husband; his partner in every sense of the word.

It’s obvious they aren’t the only ones who are nervous when they open the door to their social worker and a little girl curiously blinking up at them from behind ginger curls. Her hazel eyes eventually settle on Harry, the only familiar person here after the hour they spent together the night her grandmother’s shop was broken into. It wasn’t a huge amount of time, but it was enough for Mia to trust him and for Harry to know he wanted to make a difference in her life.

There was so much going on that night that she may not have even noticed Louis there too. She takes Harry’s hand when he offers it, assuming he’s the best option for someone to take care of her since Louis is basically a stranger to her, but that’s nothing they can’t fix.

“Mia, this is Louis. He’s been _so_ excited to meet you.”

That may have been just a bit of an overstatement since Louis has been determinedly hiding in his arm chair and playing violin most of the day, but Harry’s sure there was some excitement in there somewhere. Louis gives her his best smile when Harry silently encourages him a smile of his own.

“Hello. Nice to meet you,” Louis says quite formally for meeting a four-year-old. Though, now that Harry is thinking about it, he’s not that surprised since he hasn’t had very many opportunities to see his husband around kids before. Actually, the few times he has witnessed Louis question a child, there wasn’t much of a difference between the way he questions most adults, but again. It’s nothing they can’t fix with a little practice.

Louis kindly extends a hand toward Mia next and her brow furrows at it as if she expected a hug of some kind. There have probably only been a few times that someone has tried to shake her hand if any, but she meets Louis half-way, sporting the first grin Harry has ever seen on her face when Louis lets go and awkwardly crosses his arms behind his back like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them anymore.

Harry finds his uncertainty adorable and also hilarious. Thankfully, so does their little guest, taking a big weight off his chest and letting him know the three of them are going to be just fine. The next few weeks are going to be great.

*

_Two Days Later. 7:25am. 221b Baker Street. London._

Breakfast is and always has been Louis’ favorite time of the day for multiple reasons such as the glow of the rising sun on his face and the feeling of a fresh mug of Yorkshire in his hand as he revels in the sacred calm of morning before work. For him, it means pancake syrup and bacon frying, and his skin and lips still tingling from waking up next to the single most amazing creature on Earth as far as humans go. Of course, that was all B.M. meaning _Before Mia,_ who in a mind-blowing statistical anomaly, just so happens to be the single most _annoying_ creature on Earth, and somehow Louis was lucky enough to wind up sharing a table with both of them.

There is no calm of morning here anymore. Just the sound of Mia humming to herself as she eats her food and the dull ache in Louis’ left kneecap as her swinging her feet beneath the table results in one of her feet ‘accidently’ making contact with it.

Mia blinks up from her plate at him and winces when she realizes she just kicked something that wasn’t the table. “Oops,” she says just like she did precisely four and a half minutes ago when she kicked him the first time. “I’m sorry.”

“Just an accident, love. They happen. It’s okay,” his husband smiles at her when Louis doesn’t. “Right, Lou?” Harry now turns his smile on Louis, the sheer beauty and hopefulness of it almost enough to make Louis completely forget the abuse he’s been receiving ever since he sat down and the fact that accidents _don’t_ just happen, especially after the first time they occur, implying that a lesson should have been learned to prevent said accident from happening again, but whatever. He’ll go with it.

“Yeah. What Harry said,” he agrees, adding in a convincing grin when he feels Harry’s elbow gently nudging into his side which definitely was _not_ an accident.

Louis goes back to his tea and the small semblance of peace he had _before_ he was just assaulted, but Mia’s nondescript humming won’t let him. He just doesn’t understand it. It’s not even a real song. It can’t be. There’s pitch, no time signature, and every note ends in a different key. She’s literally making it up as she goes, only pausing every now and then to lick a rogue drop of syrup from her lips or fingers. Which of course brings him to her clear aversion to using silverware throughout an entire meal, implying that she either a) has no knowledge of its purpose, or b) knows full well and simply can’t be bothered. Louis’ betting on the latter since she’s been watching him and Harry use spoons, knives, and forks for two days. Inherently, all people are creatures of imitation and Louis’ no expert on the matter, but he _is_ a proven genius and he’s almost certain that rule applies to miniature people as well regardless of their skills involving musical composition.

“ _Talk to her, babe,”_ Harry whispers under his breath. “ _You two have got to get to know each other sometime and she’s really sweet.”_ And, yeah, she’s sweet with Harry and everyone else, but with Louis, all she does is follow him around giggling even if he hasn’t said a word. She’s worse than bloody Julep. At least he sleeps half the day.

“ _What? No way. She eats with her hands. It’s barbaric,_ ” Louis scoffs back just as quietly, watching her pick up the bite-sized pancake squares Harry cut up for her.

 _“You keep specimen jars in the fridge and shoot smiley faces into the wallpaper,”_ Harry kindly reminds him, which, touché.

“So, Mia,” Louis finally addresses Mia to her and his husband’s delight. “It’s lovely you’re staying with us. Tell me a little about yourself.”

“Okay…” she pauses, contemplatively glancing around the room as she thinks of what to say and although she’s annoying, Louis must admit that her eyes are one of the most beautiful shades he’s ever seen, the rich hazel of them nearly rivaling the splendor of Harry’s warm emerald.

“My favorite color’s green!” she answers a few seconds later in a big unnecessary reveal when her favorite color is completely obvious from the sheer excess of it visible in her bedroom and wardrobe.

“Really now. _Quite_ fascinating,” Louis lies.

“Mmhm. And also pink,” she smiles. “Oh, and blue! And sometimes red, purple, and yellow!” she lists off her sticky fingers.

“So… _all_ of the colors then. Right,” Louis summarizes, fit to let it go but the technicality of it all gets to him. “You do know what favorite means, yeah? It means you can only pick one.”

“Not really,” she frowns after giving it some thought. “Sometimes, I like just one color best. Sometimes, they’re _all_ my favorite and I don’t. I love them all best, so they take turns.”

Louis frowns to himself next. “ _Huh_. That is… quite fascinating,” he says, and actually means it this time. For a moment, Louis is intrigued by this theory of appreciating several things at once all at the same degree of passion. He assumes it _could_ be possible. He’ll have to look into it.

“My favorite colors are pink and blue too,” Harry grins. “Lou?”

“Green,” he answers immediately, now wondering if that truly is his favorite or if he’s just more inclined to say it now because it’s the color of his husband’s eyes. He was definitely more partial to blue when he was a child. That love can’t have just vanished. Is Mia actually right? _Does_ he prefer both? He needs Niall.

“Mia, what would you like to be when you grow up?” Harry asks next, getting a much quicker response than Louis did as she enthusiastically answers _princess_ without a moment’s thought.

Louis silently chuckles into his mug because he may not know for sure about this whole multiple favorites concept, but he for damn sure knows that becoming a princess isn’t exactly a job title on the market. Not only is it highly improbable but mostly _impossible_ since she’d either have to be the female heir to the monarchs of a royal bloodline, which _she isn’t_ , or she’d have to be the daughter of a noble who could potentially offer political alliance, gain, or advancement, which, last Louis checked, _she can’t_. And yet, his husband who knows all of these things just as well as him ignores it all, laughs fondly at her poor choice of future employment, and praises her.

“That’s amazing! I think you’d make a fantastic princess,” he insists.

Louis turns toward him and Harry snorts when he notices Louis staring with his mouth hanging wide open.

 _“She’s only four, babe, don’t worry. She could change her mind and want to be a unicorn tomorrow,”_ he jokes, which Louis also doesn’t get because all he ever wanted to be was a detective; a career that’s fun, simple, and most importantly, _real_. But, he doesn’t say that when Harry gently nudges him in the side again for a reaction. He plays along earning big smiles from both his husband and The Duchess sitting across from him who once again abandons her fork to lick syrup off her thumb.

“Right. Totally. Being a princess sounds _super_ cool,” he murmurs in agreement.

He decides that’s quite enough mindless chatter for one morning just as his and Harry’s phones vibrate and Mia and Harry delve into an in depth discussion about the type of crown she will wear in the future and the number of playrooms her floating, pink, glitter castle will have. Louis is dying to know who her contractor is, but doesn’t ask, quickly finishing his tea and his last few bites of food so he can get to his job that actually _exists_.

Harry grins at him after they both read Liam’s message, but he isn’t in any rush to stand up with him. In fact, Harry stays right where he is.

“Love you. Be safe and have a great day,” his husband says, leaning back to receive the quick goodbye kiss Louis presses to his lips. Under normal circumstances, Harry would be coming with him, but he’s taking a bit of time off to take care of Mia, so for this case Louis is mostly on his own.

“Love you too. Er- Have fun doing…whatever it is you two do.”

“Well, I’m glad you asked because today, Mia and I are going to… the aquarium!” Harry announces after a suspenseful pause that makes Mia gasp and her hazel eyes go wide. “It’s going to be so much fun! I wish you were coming with us.”

Staring at a giant bowl of fish all day sounds like a waste when Harry could be helping tracking down a group of elite burglars tearing through the world’s largest cities in search of what legends claim to be the real-life equivalent to the Philosopher’s Stone, but, you know, _whatever._ Everyone has their own definition of fun. To each his own glittery castle.

“Bye! Good luck!” Harry calls after him just before he’s told the same thing by a much smaller, higher-pitched voice he wasn’t expecting.

“Er- Thanks. Bye, guys,” Louis says, feeling weirdly obligated to wave and return Mia’s smile, leaving his chest feeling weirdly light after doing so. Must’ve been the tea.


	3. Chapter 3

Louis spots Liam standing outside the café he asked Louis to meet him at long before Liam sees him. He hasn’t been sleeping well again. That much is obvious from the exhaustion in his eyes, but this time, stress from work isn’t the cause of such a state. Not with the strand of long blonde hair stuck to his jacket, the scent of women’s perfume also clinging to it, and the _three_ love bites visible just under his right ear, the earliest dating back to sometime last night based on the degree of bruising. The newest was put there only an hour ago. Good for him.

“Oh. There you are. I was just about to call you,” he grins when he glances up from his phone to find Louis standing in front of him. “How are Haz and Mia? What are they up to today?”

“They’re absolutely ecstatic, and fish,” Louis answers making Liam frown in confusion. “I know. Don’t ask,” he sighs. “Anyway, what do we have? What did you find out?” It must be something good for Liam to want to meet up this way. Louis’ assumptions are proven to be correct when Liam untucks a thick file from under his arm and hands it to him.

“It’s nothing you didn’t already guess.”

“I never guess. I simply pay attention,” Louis mumbles, already skimming through all the information he’s going to need more time than this to properly analyze. 

“Well, either way, you were right. It looks like the break-in at the gift shop really is connected to the international break-ins that have been going on. I don’t know how you caught that. They seemed so random.”

A string of burglaries in which nothing of importance was burgled is never random. They’re breadcrumbs. And a group of murderous, skilled thieves country hopping across the planet in search of a mythical, ancient gemstone no one has ever laid eyes on may be seen as successful since they’ve yet to be caught, but that’s certainly about to change. Liam’s just given him enough intel on every person suspected to be part of this group and case summaries from every place they’ve hit in the past five years. They’re as good as incarcerated already.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Liam checks after Louis slaps the folder shut.

“Yeah. Who is she?” The same confused expression from before is what Liam gives him in answer until Louis pokes at the darkest of his three love bites and lifts the piece of blonde hair from his jacket. “How much do you know about her? Give me a couple of hours and I could have this run in Niall’s lab and tell you _everything_ from her metabolic type to-” To her risk of heart disease and her exposure to pollution, and that’s just scratching the surface. The follicle of this hair is a genetic treasure trove, but Liam doesn’t look even remotely interested in any of it when he starts to laugh so hard his eyes crinkle up in the corners. " _What?_ "

“Thanks very much for the offer, mate. It was very kind of you, but I think I’m alright,” he chuckles. “So far, I know her name is Lauren, she’s partial to dogs, she has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, and I really, really like her,” Liam smiles warmly to himself. “That’s really all I need to know right now.”

Sounds like a huge mistake or at least an international assassin bombshell waiting to happen, but then again, Louis never had to test Harry’s hair to know he was the one, so Liam may be onto something here. It’s not like it’s proven or anything and Liam’s not likely to change his mind as he rarely ever does, but Louis’ just going to hang onto this mysterious _Lauren’s_ hair for a while for safe keeping anyhow. He’s heard it’s what friends do.

It’s that afternoon when the huge display of blossoms in the window of the florist on his way home stops Louis in his tracks and reminds him what husbands do when he spots a beautiful bunch of wildflowers in the back that would be perfect for his. Today isn’t a special occasion or significant at all really, but all day long he missed Harry’s sense of humor and his amazing smile and that feels like reason enough to put a bright one on his face.

When Louis gets home he’s forced to do his usual dance of trying not to step on top of Julep who insists on weaving through his legs and meowing loudly about it each time he walks through the bloody door. It’s like the idiot thinks he’s invincible even though Louis is twenty times his size. He has no survival instinct whatsoever and yet something about the way he purrs and rubs his ears against Louis’ calves makes him temporarily discard his case files and flowers to bend down and give them a proper scratch. It’s probably the same something that made Harry see greatness in him whereas Louis only saw the potential for a fur hat. _Manipulative idiot_.  

Eventually, Julep stops harassing him so he can go find his husband. He isn’t in the kitchen like Louis had hoped, but there is a small gift bag from the aquarium waiting there for him meaning he wasn’t the only one looking to impress or make someone smile. Inside is a bejeweled trident made of cheap plastic and rhinestones that makes him crack a smile since it’s the one novelty weapon he doesn’t have.

Louis figured one silly yet thoughtful gift from his husband would’ve been enough, but there’s also a stuffed octopus with big plastic googly eyes half the size of its head which is wrong on literally every level. It’s a nice shade of green though which is still greatly inaccurate, but the tag reads _For Louis_ in the worst handwriting ever, meaning this anatomically incorrect representation of a sea creature didn’t come from Harry at all. It’s from Mia.

It’s much too quiet for her and Harry to be in this flat and awake at the same time. At least one of them must be sleeping and Louis finds he is correct when he walks by the spare room to find Mia fast asleep inside of it, cuddling the sparkly purple version of his octopus. He should thank her. Definitely not right now when she’s actually quiet for once, but you know, at some point.

He finds Harry in their bed typing away on his laptop when Louis pokes his head into the room _after_ his new magical trident.

“I figured you’d like that,” Harry teases. “It’s the one weapon you _don’t_ have.”

Louis thought the same exact thing when he saw it.

“I love it, and I got you something too. Wild flowers,” he reveals once he steps into the room completely. Though he doesn’t make it much further than the door before Harry is there too, wearing that bright smile Louis wanted so badly to see.

“Louis. Babe, these are beautiful,” he says, smelling every bloom he’s holding before locking him in a kiss that ends much too quickly. “Oh, and did you see your _other_ special gift?” Harry asks when he pulls back. “She picked that out just for you. We stayed in that gift shop forever. You should’ve seen how excited she was. She even picked one just like it for herself so yours can have a friend,” he chuckles. “It was really cute.”  

Louis doesn’t want to admit it, but that is actually kind of sweet to imagine. His chest even does a thing. He really has got to lay off the caffeine.

*

The next morning begins in a much more routine fashion for Louis when he turns over in bed and the scent of the coconut and fresh gardenia washes over him. After all this time, it’s permanently set into his pillow and their sheets making Louis grin into them. It shouldn’t seeing as how shampoo is nothing but a chemical blend of concentrated sodium sulfates, ammonium chloride, and artificial fragrances, but his husband’s particular choice in beauty products combined with the sun-kissed scent of his skin creates a high that will forever be his weakness. And although the pillow he’s currently nosing at is quite nice with its high thread count case and faint Harry scent, Louis can’t help missing the man himself… who is apparently _not_ curled up in bed next to him he realizes upon reaching out and touching nothing but cool mattress.

The quick sound of a drawer sliding shut across the room makes Louis’ eyes fly open. He sits up to find his husband a lot less naked than when they finally fell asleep last night, but still looking incredible regardless. He’s fully dressed in one of his button ups he only wears for work at the hospital with his white coat neatly folded at the foot of their bed.

“Going in today?” Louis asks even though it’s obvious where Harry is off to. He loves that his husband is able to help out at the hospital whenever he’s needed, but Louis can’t pretend he’s not a little disappointed he’s not still in bed.

Harry aims a silent apology in his direction as he finishes buttoning his shirt and hurriedly tucks it into his slacks. “Yeah, for a bit. Amanda called. There’s a stomach virus going around that’s finally hit the staff so they’re short by a lot.”

“God, that’s terrible,” Louis frowns thinking of all those sick people and the chaos St. Bartholomew must be undergoing with so many of its physicians down and out. “Well, you and Mia be safe then. See you later,” he chirps, temporarily stopping his efforts to snuggle back into bed when Harry snorts a laugh from across the room. “What?”

“As much as I would love to have a little assistant today, I can’t take Mia with me, babe. Didn’t you hear me say there’s a virus? It’s too dangerous so she’ll have to stay here.”

“Oh. Well that was incredibly nice of Mrs. Hudson to offer,” he yawns. They’ll have to thank her later. And give back all her paintings. Maybe they can buy her a new one.

“She didn’t offer. And Mia can’t stay with Mrs. Hudson because she’s out at the moment, but she said she’s close by so just ring her if there’s an emergency.” Louis can feel his brow furrowing as he watches his husband leave the room with his work things in hand.

“Wait. _What?_ ”

Louis hurries after him, only pausing to pull on his joggers from last night when Harry kindly reminds him he’s nude.

“Why can’t she go with you and stay in the basement with Niall?”

“Because,” Harry says through a bite of the apple he just grabbed from the counter. “He’s out sick too, and also, I can’t take a four-year-old to go hang out in a morgue.”

Figures. Niall _would_ be fucking ill right when Louis needs him most. And he’s not sure what exactly Harry’s getting at by implying that the morgue laboratory is anything besides a good fucking time.

“Lou, you’ll be fine,” Harry chuckles when he glances over his shoulder at him from the front door.  Louis appreciates the vote of confidence, but this is no laughing matter.

“But, what am I supposed to _do_ with her?” he whines. 

“Well, nothing right now. She’s still asleep, but I’m sure you two will think of something. She thinks you’re so great!” Harry assures him before a quick glance at the time. “Shit. I’ve got to get going, but I love you, yeah? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Harry smacks a kiss to his slack lips before leaving but Louis’ hand shoots out to stop the door from closing.

“Love you too, b-but what if she wakes up? What then?”

Louis is no expert, but he’s pretty sure children do that sometimes and he’s pretty sure nothing good ever comes of it. Harry doesn’t seem to share his fear, biting down on an amused grin before pressing a fresh kiss to Louis’ jaw.

“ _When_ she wakes up, feed her of course,” Harry chuckles. “Give her some breakfast. She loves pancakes just like me.”

“But-”

“She’ll probably be hungry again around noon. You can’t go wrong with grilled cheese,” he promises. “Okay, you’ve totally got this, Lou! You two bonding is going to be great! Love you, bye!”

That’s easy for him to say. He gets to _leave_.

“ _Oh! And please feed Julep as well,_ ” Harry shouts from half-way down the stairs. _“And don’t ring Mrs. Hudson! Being alone inside a flat with a cat and a child is NOT an emergency!_ ”

Louis scoffs at that as he lets the door shut. Like hell it isn’t.

He sighs as he leans his head back against the door wondering how the hell his plans of quiet at-home case file investigation got hijacked and turned into The Baby-Sitter’s Club. Another slow sigh escapes him when he lifts his head less than a minute later and the baby-sittees are already there watching him with hungry eyes letting him know this is going to be one very long day.

*

It’s one fish-shaped bowl of dry cat food for Julep, a plate of syrupy pancakes cut into perfect sixteenths for Mia, and the twenty- _two_ minutes it took her to consume them all later that Louis finally has a blissful, well-earned moment of calm to himself. The feeling and flavor of his tea sinking into his taste buds is magnificent. It’s one of the greatest salvations he’s ever known along with the blessed silence that accompanies it when he sits down at the kitchen table to work alone. Or so he thought anyway before he spies a headful of fiery, sleep-mussed curls bouncing into the room over the rim of his mug.

“Back so soon?” he asks, to which Mia says nothing in one of their infamous stare-offs. “I don’t have any more pancakes, you know,” Louis informs her, certain there’s no way in hell a person that tiny could still be hungry when she ate almost as much as him, an adult. “What? Did the pancakes magically evaporate from your stomach? Do you have cestodes?”

Her forehead crinkles up at the foreign word. “What’s that?”

“Tape worms,” Louis answers matter-of-factly, the mention of which is apparently quite humorous to her. Louis has never found the subject of parasitic worms to be particularly funny. Nor the way he walks, talks, and drinks his evening tea by the window, but Mia of course thinks it’s all hilarious. 

“You’re very funny,” she giggles.

“Thanks, I’m here all day,” he grumbles under his breath, resenting everybody who isn’t.

She loses interest in him and leaves after a moment of watching him flip through the hundreds of papers before him, but soon returns not even five minutes later with her sparkly octopus, a notebook full of clean white paper, and the giant box of crayons she and Harry came home with two days ago.

“Wait. Wh-What are you doing?” he asks, when she slaps everything down on the table before climbing into the chair directly across from his. She dumps out her crayons getting them everywhere and props the octopus up with the napkin holder like some kind of tentacled spectator. “I am working here, you know.”

“I know. Me too,” she chirps as she settles onto her knees and begins drawing green squiggles at the bottom of a blank page with a lopsided sun at the top of it complete with thick yellow lines shooting out from it’s center.

Louis wouldn’t exactly call her inaccurate representation of the sun’s rays ‘ _work’_ but she’s being quiet while doing it so he won’t complain. He tries to go back to his actual work, however the sound of Mia’s drawing and now humming makes it impossible for him to focus. He’s just about to kindly ask if she can make up songs a little quieter or preferably somewhere else when he happens to notice the new additions to her picture.

There’s now someone standing under the lopsided sun; a tall figure with long dark scribbles for hair. He has two light-green circles in the middle of his head and a comically wide grin that Louis would recognize anywhere; even here, drawn on by a kid wielding a bright pink crayon.

“Is that Harry?”

“Mhmm,” she answers, her brow furrowed the same way Harry’s always does when he’s concentrating. _Cute_ isn’t a word Louis throws around unless Harry is directly involved, but it briefly comes to mind while watching her.

Once she’s done with Harry, giving him a torso that stretches nearly half the bloody page, Mia starts drawing another smaller person standing right beside him who Louis assumes to be Mia herself since this new person is several inches shorter than Harry. That is, until Louis realizes this new person is also male, has light-blue eyes, and is wearing an exact replica of the t-shirt he’s wearing right now.

“ _What_? How am I only _this_ tall?” he exclaims, holding his thumb and index finger one inch apart in comparison to the nearly four and half inches Harry has. “Where’s the proportion in this? What scale are you using?” It’s not like he isn’t aware that he’s not quite as tall as his husband but he does at least come up to his bloody _waist_. “And my head is not that big,” he points out.

“I think it looks pretty!” Mia beams as she holds up her art to examine it herself. “Harry _is_ really tall! _And_ , you’re really, really smart, so your brain must be really, _really_ big,” Mia shrugs like that’s a perfectly logical explanation for his head being the size of a grapefruit. Like one has anything whatsoever to do with the other, and they _don’t_ , but honestly with his lack of height, a waist, and apparently, _hair_ in comparison to Harry he needs to take compliments where he can bloody well get them.

She means well, or so it seems. It’s difficult not to, but Louis doesn’t give a lecture. Well, not a big one anyway.

“Intellect and brain size have no direct correlation…” Louis begins, stopping himself before going on any further. “But, er- thank you. I guess,” he mumbles, unable to stop staring at his oversized head.

Louis watches as she resumes her drawing, fascinated by her complete disregard for the way her world actually looks as she draws herself next and then adds in more stuff.

“Who’s that?” he asks, giving up completely on reading through his case files when Mia starts to draw a new person at the top of the page flying around in the sky like that’s a thing.

“My Gran,” she answers as she gives the woman one long grey curlicue for hair. Louis hadn’t expected her to say that or look quite so curious when she stops drawing to look at him. 

“Harry says you’re the best at finding bad guys in the _whole_ world,” she says, making Louis’ heart warm and his cheeks retain a bit of heat as he grins down at his wedding band. “Is that true?”

“Um, sometimes.” He certainly tries to be the best. More than anything he just wants his husband’s faith in him and everyone else’s to be well-placed.

“Do you know what happened to my Gran?”

There’s something about the confidence and optimism in her eyes that reminds him so much of Harry’s. It was that very look that Louis couldn’t say no to the night Harry asked to bring Mia here and give her a sense of family. Something that Louis could probably try a little harder at doing while figuring out how to catch the people who did this.

“Er- No. Not yet,” Louis answers truthfully. “But, I will. Very soon,” he promises, and he means it but somehow that doesn’t quite feel like enough when Mia nods and begins drawing angelic versions of her parents who have also been taken from her too soon.

Heaven has always been one of those things that Louis just doesn’t get. It doesn’t make sense to him and he’s never understood the concept, but he makes a real effort to today, making Mia sport a happy smile again when he assures her that they all love her picture.

It’s later that day after a grilled cheese feast for two and a much-needed nap for Ms. Picasso that Louis starts making his way through all the information Liam gave him. The people who broke into Mia’s grandmother’s shop have been doing things like that for years. Breaking into museums and galleries housing ancient artifacts in search of a nonexistent stone as well as committing murder whenever they deem it necessary. Well, to be fair, the Cintamani Stone probably did exist at some point in time, but it definitely wasn’t magical, and wherever it ended up it’s obviously long gone now. These people are on a goose chase. They may as well be looking for the fountain of youth, but instead of giving up they’re getting desperate. Desperate enough to break into a bloody gift shop run by an old women who never saw them coming. Now, if only Louis could just figure out where they’re heading next to put an end to all of it.

Mia comes padding in from her nap about half an hour later with Julep in hand who doesn’t even seem to mind that he’s being held hostage in her arms. In fact, he seems quite happy about it the way he does whenever it’s Harry cuddling him to death.

“Sleep well?” Louis asks after she lets out a massive residual yawn. Mia nods and then gently set Julep down so she can reclaim her seat from last time. She doesn’t immediately start up drawing again or humming, or kicking, or any of the usual things she does to entertain herself, content to just sit there watching Louis watch her over his third mug of tea.

“Can I have some too?”

Louis follows her gaze to the periodic table mug in his hand that Lottie gave him last year for Christmas which goes perfectly with the ‘ _Don’t worry, I’m a genius_ ,’ mug that Niall got him for his birthday. Still, as far as he knows, children don’t typically drink tea and he is not sacrificing a whole bag of it just so she can play a game of follow the leader.

“You wouldn’t like it,” he tells her, watching her hopeful face fall. She _wouldn’t_ like it, but she obviously wants to try it.

“Have a sip, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says relinquishing his cooled mug over to her. Mia accepts it with a smile, eagerly turning it up to her lips until the flavor hits her and she quickly lowers it just managing to hold back the grimace he can see pulling at her lips.

“It’s… good,” she lies, forcefully taking another sip just to prove how fine she is with the bitter taste of it which is something Harry can’t even do without drowning the flavor in an ocean of milk and sugar; a mildly impressive feat for someone whose books have more pictures in them than words.

“Well, it’s not exactly pancake syrup, but that was still a good try,” Louis offers noting Mia’s longing expression when she’s made to give the mug back, realizing suddenly that it’s not the tea she wants at all. He gets up and walks over to the cabinet to test his theory, his lips curling into a dark grin as he decides this is the perfect opportunity to test two theories in one. “Which one would you prefer?”

He holds out a green mug, a yellow mug with flowers around the handle, and a deep purple one since they’re all supposedly her ‘favorites’ all at once. Which is complete bullshit in Louis’ opinion. Mia looks over each of them with a crinkle between her brow, mentally ranking each of them based on some kind of criteria her brain has created the way _all_ people do when faced with choice.

“Not so easy, is it?” he smirks, feeling victorious is his win until Mia looks past him into the open cabinet.

“ _Ooh._ Is that a rainbow mug?” she beams.

Louis turns to look at the very one she has spotted and rolls his eyes because she would pick the mug Harry loves best which just so happens to be multi-colored rendering his impromptu experiment useless. He fills it with orange juice, making her the happiest kid on the planet as she resumes her coloring and entertains herself by taking a sip from her mug each time Louis does. It’s said imitation is the highest form of flattery, so Louis doesn’t mention how annoying having a mini copycat is. Or how endearing.

Harry comes home a bit later that afternoon visibly exhausted, but rewardingly so the way he always does after spending a day helping at the hospital. He still bursts in with all the energy he left with this morning, pausing to scoop up Julep and give him a cuddle, say hello to Mia and give her a bear hug complete with bear tickles, and then finally making his way over to Louis for a long overdue kiss that leaves his lips tingly.

“Missed you,” he grins before pulling back to face them both. “What have you guys been up to all day? Tell me everything!”

“Coloring!” Mia shouts, just as Louis mumbles, ‘getting nowhere.’ Harry looks over every drawing Mia made and tells her how amazing they all are, stifling a laugh into his fist when he sees the one of himself towering over a big-headed Louis. Louis doesn’t miss the fact that his husband keeps that one in his possession. He even has the audacity to hang it on the fridge for display. He’ll pay for that later.

“And you, babe?” Harry asks coming to stand behind him to see everything he’s been working on. “Any new leads today?”

“Kind of. Not really,” he sighs. He has MO’s and suspect names so that’s something. He also has a bunch of look-alike sketches and representations of the stone they’ve been fruitlessly searching for. They’re all different colors, shapes, and sizes, though it's one of the green ones that catches Mia’s attention when Harry places it down with all the others.

“That one looks just like the one in my Gran’s shop,” a small voice chirps making Harry smile and Louis internally roll his eyes. She sounds just like all the other people he’s read about today and their alleged first-hand accounts of the Cintamani Stone.

“Really?” Harry humors her as always. “Well, it must’ve been very pretty.”

“It was,” she quickly agrees. “I think that’s why Gran always hid it in the box in the wall.”

Louis blinks up from the picture. He, Liam, and the rest of Liam’s team examined that place from top to bottom and found no box in the wall. But, perhaps that was the whole point. And why Mia’s grandmother, if Mia is actually telling the truth, would hide something important there. Maybe she did see those thieves coming after all.

“Wait. So, you’re saying you’ve seen _this_ exact stone. Not in a picture or some story book, but in real life. With your own eyes,” Louis checks, holding up the picture again to be sure she knows which one he means.

“Yes?” she answers with a slight frown.

“This thing is currently in your Gran’s shop?” If it is that would definitely explain why it was so randomly targeted.

“I don’t know. I think so,” Mia shrugs. “It used to be there.”

And unless she suddenly decided to part with it and sell it, it probably still is. Louis can practically feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins at the prospect of this stone being real and right here under his nose the whole time. The feeling only multiplies when Harry meets his gaze wearing a similar expression of excitement.

“I’ll go ring Mrs. Hudson.”

Looks like he just got his partner back, and Mia might have just catapulted herself straight to friendship status.


	4. Chapter 4

Having a four-year-old around the house these past weeks has been quite an adventure in and of itself, but Harry can’t help feeling that familiar rush and exhilaration when he and Louis climb out the back of their taxi.

“You get the door and I’ll stand watch?” his husband proposes, moving to stand casually along the pavement to keep an eye out, though not before brushing past him a bit too close for it to have been accidental and then donning a smirk that says it was anything but as Harry cozies up to the gift shop door, ignores the police tape across the front of it, and commits a misdemeanor offense in broad daylight.

It doesn’t take him even half as long as it used to back when Louis had to first convince him they were doing something good by doing something a little bit bad, and then coach Harry step by step through the subtle art of lock picking. Not like now as the fresh deadbolt Liam’s team installed after cleaning this place up clicks almost immediately under his practiced hand.

“After you,” Harry offers as the door swings right open, unable to keep the self-satisfied grin off his face as Louis’ look of approval turns into something much less innocent the way it often does after Harry has purposefully broken the law.

“Careful there,” Louis warns, breezing past Harry even closer than last time, sending little chills down his spine. “Keep that sort of thing up and someone just might have you locked up. Or, at the very least, handcuffed.”

Here’s hoping.

“Is that a threat?”

“More like a promise, but for later,” Louis says, his flirtatious tone fading away into curiosity as he looks around the crime scene at which Mia claims he and everyone else missed something that should have been unmissable. “Now, if I were a sixty-two-year-old woman safeguarding an alleged centuries-year-old mythical, wish-granting stone inside a gift shop, where would I hide it?” he mumbles aloud to no one in particular.

He starts walking along the damaged and now empty display cases with his eyes narrowed at the faded, ugly geometric wallpaper clinging to the walls behind them. Harry doesn’t see anything special about it, but something must be off because no sooner does Harry move to come stand next to him does Louis climb over one of the cases on the left to run his palms over it.

“ _Oh, yes_. _Of course_. _It’s so obvious_.”

Harry narrows his gaze at the spot on the wall his husband is smiling at and frowns.

“Um, _what’s_ so obvious exactly?”

“Well, all of it. Everything!” he exclaims. “Quick, tell me what you notice about the paper on this specific wall.” Harry follows the quick motion of his arms extending in front of the ordinary wall before them.

“Oh. Erm... Er- It looks…” Exactly the same as all the other walls surrounding them. “Er- Pass,” Harry chooses to preserve his pride, until Louis gives him a look for quitting so easily and not playing. “Alright, fine _,”_ he sighs, now looking more closely _._ “Um, it’s the same texture and pattern as the rest of the wallpaper. Old, thick…” _hideous_ , but Harry leaves that one out. “It’s patchy and overlapped from years of quick repairs. Probably never had the money to just strip it and start again. And it’s faded, though that’s probably mostly due to the sun shining in more on this side of the shop than the other due to the placement of the big window, and once again, age. Paper fades over time.”

Harry grins and rolls his eyes when he gets an unexpected kiss to each side of his face as a reward for his efforts. “ _Excellent_ deduction, love,” Louis praises, making him feel quite proud of himself until he hears the, “I mean, you’re completely wrong about pretty much all of it just like everyone else, but, good try,” that comes immediately after. And that’s no surprise really. Generally, the only person in the world clever enough to know what’s really going on is Louis himself.

“Well, go on, then,” Harry encourages him with a smile. “Be brilliant.”

His husband looks all too thrilled to comply.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he smirks, making a show of rolling his shoulders and clearing his throat in preparation. “What you noticed about this wall is precisely what everyone else including myself noticed the night we were called here, meaning not very much at all,” he begins with that air of complete confidence Harry has always admired about him. “It _is_ faded. The paper _is_ old, but oddly enough, not quite as old as the wallpaper on _that_ side of the shop,” he reveals, quickly climbing back over the display case to go to the opposite wall and pulling Harry along with him in the process. “Nicks and tears in these walls have been mended over and over again just like you said. There are so many random patches in this shop that nobody would even think to look twice at a wall with yet another swatch cheaply slapped over it, or suspect _this_ particular square to be little more than evidence of another quick repair.”

“Which, I’m assuming, it’s _not_ ,” Harry guesses when his husband produces a pocket knife out of nowhere to pry the thick paper from the wall. He could’ve sworn that was in the weapons chest.

“It’s not,” Louis confirms as he works. “This patch merely appears to be the evidence of an old repair, when in actuality, it’s camouflage. An optical illusion,” he grins, revealing the door of a small safe he finds set into the wall.

Harry watches his husband in awe as he cracks the combination lock within seconds, revealing cash, documents, a few pieces of jewelry that must be heirlooms, and most miraculously, the eerie, green, triangular-shaped stone Mia claimed to recognize at home.

“She was telling the truth,” Harry marvels aloud as Louis holds up the stone to better examine it. Not that he ever doubted her honesty, however at four-years-old she does have a rather active imagination as most do so it’s sometimes difficult to determine if what she says is grounded in reality or in pink, floating, princess castles. “I wonder what made Mia tell us about the safe now?” Harry says after a closer look at all her grandmother’s prized possessions.

“Really? I want to know where innocent old Gran happened upon a replica of The Cintamani Stone so believable she felt the need to hide it in the bloody wall.”

“Replica?”

“Well, of course. It’s not like it’s actually _real,”_ Louis snorts. “Supernatural, wish-granting stones don’t exist. It’s got to be jade or at least chlorite. Some type of mineral.”

Perhaps, but last Harry checked neither jade, chlorite, or any other mineral seemed to give off a soft magnetic glow quite like whatever the hell his husband is holding. Maybe it’s just the lighting.

They stop by the station to tell an unimpressed Liam about their discovery made inside a taped-off, padlocked, restricted access crime scene still involved in an open investigation, however he only massages his temples for a little while before the sight of the mysterious green stone makes him forget all about his and Louis’ illegal trespassing.

“It’s gorgeous, but what is it exactly?” he frowns, still turning it over in his hand an hour later. “What’s it made of?”

“No idea,” Louis smiles over the box of files he’s digging through, clearly eager to get into Niall’s lab to find out for sure. Harry has been scrolling through the city’s archives for what feels like forever and has yet to find anything even remotely helpful.

“I can’t believe Mia’s grandmother had this thing all this time,” Liam marvels aloud. “Where’d she even get it? Where does something like this even come from?”

“Uh, perhaps Siwa, Egypt?” Harry answers out of nowhere, making both Liam and his husband stop and turn in his direction.

“And how exactly do you know that?” Louis raises an eyebrow.

“This article from 1973 about Mia’s geologist grandfather unearthing a strange, unidentified stone during an excursion there. It went missing before it could be showcased anywhere, and coincidentally, the night he died.”

“Died how?”

“Break-in at the university he worked at.”

The light in his husband’s eyes has never shined brighter than the moment all the papers he’s holding go flying in every direction except down into the box he got them from.

“ _Hey_ ,” Liam frowns at the mess as Louis ignores it completely for the computer Harry has possession of.

“Shut it,” Louis says as he steals it away, making Harry frown too until he gets a nice lapful of his husband angling the screen so they can both see it. He reads through the article twice as fast as Harry does, yet somehow, comes out with twice the amount of information. “So, Grandpa went to Siwa to study ruins, came across some random stone while there, and then let it slip to the whole world that he suspected said stone to have ‘special and unique properties’. Obviously, _that_ sparked some interest.”

“And _greed_ ,” Harry adds. “He was killed not even two weeks after he returned but there was no sign of the stone after the break-in so most people figured it was stolen-”

“Or, that Grandpa was completely insane,” Louis mumbles. “But, he clearly knew better than to leave something like that unprotected since we just found the stone perfectly safe and protected in his wife’s shop-”

“Which of course means he wasn’t crazy at all,” Harry concludes at the same time as his husband.

He and Louis are both wearing grins when they look at each other, only breaking their gaze when a throat clears from across the room.

“Um, hi there. Sorry to interrupt…whatever this is,” Liam apologizes with a vague hand gesture in their direction. “But, aren’t you forgetting-”

“He’s right,” Harry gasps. “Mia. I told her and Mrs. Hudson we’d be right back, and it’s nearly dinner time.”

“Damn. That’s right, and _I_ wanted to head over to the lab for a bit. Niall must be feeling better by now and I have a feeling he’d _love_ to help analyze this,” Louis beams.

“Okay, great. That’s actually perfect. So, why don’t you run over to St. Barts really quick with the stone while I do the shopping, and then we’ll both meet up at home afterwards to get Mia and we’ll go from there with getting dinner started,” Harry beams back at him.

And everyone said they couldn’t manage crime solving while taking care of a kid. They’re fucking killing it.

“Um, actually, I meant the robbers running around terrorizing the world looking for _this_ thing,” he says holding up the stone, “But, whatever. You two obviously have a lot on your plates.”

“Oh, not at all,” Harry assures him as they get up from the chair they’re sharing and Louis gently plucks the stone out of Liam’s hand. “We’ve got everything perfectly under control.”

“Yeah, this case is of the utmost importance to us,” Louis swears. “Er- And sweet, sweet Mia of course. She is also a priority because _people_ are important sometimes. _All_ the time,” he corrects when Harry nudges him in the side. “Well, Li, it’s been super fun. Thanks for letting us use your office.”

“I _didn’t_ , but you’re both welcome,” Liam offers.

“Have a good night. Oh, and tell Lauren going back to brunette was a good call. I’m sure it’s looks much more natural.”

“W-Wait. What? How do you know she changed her hair? You’ve never even met.”

“Well, there’s a new poorly concealed love bite behind your ear that’s the same general size, shape, and placement of the last one I spotted, there’s now a long strand of chestnut-colored hair clinging to the end of your sleeve which could indicate a new fling since Lauren is blonde, however, it’s glossy indicating a fresh dye job and deep conditioning session immediately after, it’s the same length and texture of the last strand I found stuck to your clothing, and also, her perfume is still the same. It’s Chanel. I smelled it on you the moment we walked in.”

Liam just blinks at him the way most people do whenever he points out the not so obvious.

“O-Oh,” he nods. “Of course.”

“Yeah. Well, anyway. Tell her hi,” Louis grins before swiftly walking out the door.

Harry has no idea who Lauren is. He’s been so busy lately that he hadn’t even realized Liam was seeing anybody, however their friend does seem happier and a lot less stressed than usual. Especially with Louis leaving his office a fucking mess.

“Er- Congrats, mate! Can’t wait to meet her. See you later!” Harry tells him before hurrying after his husband.

\--------------

It’s nearly sunset by the time they make it back to Baker Street; Harry with everything they need to make pizza as well as brownies tucked away inside a few shopping bags, and Louis with the stone he hasn’t put down since forcing a sickly Niall to analyze it with him and then in the end only coming up with more questions instead of answers.

Mia looks happy to see them when they pick her up, running over to tell them everything fun she and Mrs. Hudson did. She made a new stack of drawings in the meantime, and Harry doesn’t miss the fact that she did a take two of Louis’ portrait so that his head is better proportioned and he appears almost as tall as himself. He also doesn’t miss the way his husband’s eyes go soft when she makes him take it and says she drew it just for him. Louis thanks her and accepts the gift with a small grin, however it falters and time stops for several beats when Mia suddenly wraps him in a hug.

There is nothing Louis can do to stop it as Mia attempts something that most people besides close friends and family would never try without at least a warning first. He stiffens a bit at the unexpected embrace, but to Harry and Mrs. Hudson’s surprise, he doesn’t immediately pull away. He attempts to return her affection with a pat on the head that looks eerily close to the way he pets Julep whenever forced to cuddle but Mia doesn’t seem to mind, smiling even brighter than before when she pulls back to go hug Mrs. Hudson goodbye next. 

“You alright? Still alive? I was worried for a second there,” Harry chuckles when Mia runs up the stairs ahead of them to their door.

“Shut up,” he says with a fond roll of his eyes that gives way to a stubborn grin. It’s small and he immediately hides it behind a very serious expression, but it was there which is all that really matters.

“Would you like to help us with the pizza?” Harry asks followed by a very enthusiastic, ‘ _Yes, Louis! Please_?’ knowing that his husband has been itching to do nothing but sit in his armchair and clear his head even without Louis saying so. Helping him and a four-year-old destroy their kitchen with pizza toppings and tomato sauce probably isn’t high on his list of things to do right now, but this evening seems to be full of surprises because instead of turning down the offer flat, he actually considers it and then accepts.

“Um, yeah. I can help you guys for a little while,” he says, pocketing the stone to unlock the door and help carry in the food.

Maybe it really does grant wishes.

*

Louis can hear the sound of Harry’s laughter and Julep’s claws scratching along the floor even with the strings of his violin humming in his ear with the smooth concerto he’s playing. After dinner, Harry had told Mia it was time to clean up and get ready for bed, but from the sounds of it, there’s not much going on besides playtime and their cat running for dear life to escape the bathroom where all the water lives and where Harry occasionally declares it bath time for him too.

He can feel it when Julep seeks refuge on the back of his armchair, his claws only adding to the wear and tear of the old leather as he curls up above Louis’ head. Whatever Harry and Mia did to make him flee must’ve been pretty hilarious because they’re still laughing when Louis decides to stop the music his heart is not really into at the moment. There’s a lot on his mind and the weight of it all doesn’t get any lighter when Louis places down his instrument to dig the stone out of his pocket once more.

It’s the most peculiar thing Louis has ever beheld, and even after running every test he and Niall could think of, he still has no clue what to call it. Its properties are unlike any rock or mineral known on Earth, putting it in a mysterious league all its own. Staring at it doesn’t help any more than taking it to the lab did, but it is quite beautiful to look at and it does make Louis wonder if the desperate people who have been searching for it all these years really were as deluded as he thought. He pockets it again after he doesn’t gain any fresh insights from it and resumes playing his piece, but he’s soon interrupted again by the creeping feeling of someone besides Julep watching him.

He opens his eyes and finds a bright pair of hazel ones blinking up at him from behind damp curls that smell just like Harry’s after a shower.

“Hello. How may I help you?” he asks when all Mia does is stare at him and his violin.

“What’s that?” she smiles, completely ignoring Louis’ question for one of her own.

Louis sighs to himself, realizing he’s not going to get anything accomplished tonight. At least not until his extremely curious new friend goes to bed. Or if he shoots something, which apparently, is frowned upon in the presence of children. “It’s a violin,” he explains, playing her a few more measures of the piece he was just working on until Mia asks a new question that has Louis eyeing her with suspicion.

“Can I try?”

The only other person on this planet Louis has ever let ‘try’ with his baby is his other baby who’s currently singing to himself somewhere in the flat about girls just wanting to have fun. Telling Mia no is his first instinct, but the way her eyes light up at the prospect of merely holding the instrument reminds him so much of Harry whenever he’s excited that he can’t. Now that Mia has been here a while, Louis finds that she’s not quite as annoying as she once was. And after all, it _was_ her who led them to the stone hidden away in her grandmother’s shop. The least Louis can do is pay her back even if it is through the complete agony of listening to an unpracticed bow hand screeching across his freshly tuned strings.

“Alright, fine. Sit down here, but you have to sit up straight. No slouching allowed,” Louis warns as he stands up from his chair. He doesn’t have to say it twice before Mia promptly takes his place and does exactly what he asked. “Good.”

He moves to hand her the violin next but then realizes she has no idea how to even hold it.

“This is the chin rest. The violin goes beneath your chin at an angle and then rests against your collarbone. Your left hand supports the neck of the instrument like _this_.” He shows her first using himself as an example before helping her mimic the positioning with her smaller frame. “There. Got it?”

“Mhmm,” Mia hums, frowning at the foreign sensation of supporting something between her neck and shoulder the way Louis used to when he first began playing around her age. She'll grow more used to it with practice.

“Now, this is the bow and it's _very_ important. You can't play properly without it,” he says, briefly taking the instrument back to show her how to manage both at once. She’s actually not half bad at it once he stands back a few minutes later to analyze her posture. In all honesty, it’s better than Harry’s and Louis tells her so, offering genuine praise on her form, until he feels yet another pair of curious eyes trailing him. Louis glances over his shoulder like he can’t already sense exactly who is there just by the way his stomach flutters. It’s Harry of course, standing there watching his and Mia’s impromptu music lesson with a fondness that sends Louis’ heart racing the way it always does when Harry looks at him like that.

“Oh. Bedtime already?” Louis assumes it is, knowing it must be for Harry to come looking for Mia with a princess storybook in hand. It’s way past eight o’clock, and Harry must notice that when he glances at the time but he just shrugs, unable to stop grinning at him.

“Uh- No, not at all. Please,” he encourages them. “I’m just a happy member of the audience. Ignore me.” He swaps the book for Julep, grabbing him from his hiding place on the back of the armchair to settle down with him on the floor the way he sometimes does whenever Louis is playing a piece he particularly likes. Mia hasn’t even played a note yet, but Harry looks just as captivated and proud of her as if she were playing a symphony that Louis himself created.

It’s much later that night when Louis wakes with a start in bed. He immediately reaches out for Harry assuming the sound he heard was the result of a nightmare, however he’s fast asleep, peacefully curled up on his side of the bed taking deep, even breaths. Louis’ next guess is Julep of course whom he finds curled up at their feet, so the noise couldn’t have come from him.

He drops a quick kiss to Harry’s shoulder before getting out of bed to go investigate. Something had to have woken him up just now, and he finds the source of it across the corridor in the guest bedroom as Mia whimpers in her sleep. She looks confused in a way that’s all too familiar when Louis gently shakes her awake, realizing whatever she was dreaming about wasn’t real, but she looks just as terrified as Harry used to whenever his past trauma would come back to haunt him while he slept. Mia was never injured in a war zone, but she has gone through a lot of things in her short lifetime that are probably just as awful. And she is virtually alone in this world because of it so Louis doesn’t judge too harshly when she sees that it’s only Louis standing at her bedside and instantly reaches for his hand, breathing easier just from having someone else there with her.

It’s after three in the morning but Louis stands there until she seems okay again, though when he turns to leave the room he finds he can’t go anywhere, held there by Mia’s small but desperate grip. He’s not really sure what he’s supposed to do with a little girl too afraid to fall back asleep, but he assumes it must be similar to what he does for Harry.

“Hey, I’m right here,” he whispers, even sitting down on the edge of her bed to prove that he isn’t leaving just yet. “Go back to sleep. I’ve got you.”

Usually, he ends up holding his husband and combing through his hair until he drifts off again but Mia seems happy just squeezing his hand, only adding to the list of things Louis doesn’t understand lately when his heart clenches realizing he doesn’t quite want to let go.


	5. Chapter 5

_One Week Later._

Harry finds himself in quite the predicament stood in the vegetable aisle, unable to remember if it’s Lottie, Niall, or Liam who hates broccoli while his shopping helper scribbles all over the back of his list with a crayon she smuggled out of the flat. He’s hoping it’s one of the latter two who are the picky dinner guests since Lottie is the one coming over tonight for a much overdue family night. How a whole month flew by without seeing his sister-in-law, Harry has no idea. Life and pretty much everything in it has been going full speed ever since he and Louis decided to get married one sunny morning, took on a brand new case, and somehow ended up taking in a little girl all before the day was out. Not that Harry minds any of it of course, especially not Mia.

“Can you find the word broccoli and cross it off the list? It starts with _B_ ,” he tells his assistant who flips the list over and hunts for the word with a furrowed brow until she finally sees it near the bottom of the list.

“Found it!” she beams. “This one is next. It starts with _M_.”

Harry looks at the word she’s pointing to and smiles. _Merlot_. One thing he knows for sure Lottie likes.

He carefully places a bottle into their cart and smiles watching Mia proudly mark through it. It has been a relatively calm day since usually the two of them spend most of their time together exploring the city, but Mia makes everything feel like an adventure including grocery shopping. Between getting to know her as the wonderful little human she is and then watching his lovely husband adjust to having her around, Harry smiles all day. And lately, he has noticed he’s not the only one enjoying their time together, because even with all the unexpected things that have been thrown Harry’s way, the biggest surprise of all has to be Louis.

For over two years, Harry has witnessed his husband accomplish the impossible again and again, and he wouldn’t necessarily say that Louis falling for someone is impossible per se. More like improbable since it has only happened once before. He never considered there being a next time for something like that and he certainly didn’t think that when he did fall again it would be for a little girl who looks at Louis as if he hung the moon; possibly even the stars too.

After such a rocky beginning, Harry honestly hadn’t expected much to come of their meeting beside Louis barely tolerating her and Mia driving him up a wall. Now, it isn’t uncommon to hear them debating about the concept of multiple favorites or walk in on them sharing a nice cuppa over lunch with Louis sipping his beloved Yorkshire and Mia’s mug filled to the brim with orange juice. She’s taking violin lessons now, and Louis who rarely has the patience for anything or anyone somehow turns into the calmest and most encouraging teacher Harry has ever seen as he instructs her. With Mia there, Harry finds a new, softer side to his husband each day, however the thing that really left him breathless and his heart thudding in his chest was the morning he woke up alone expecting to find his husband in the kitchen or snoozing in his armchair as he so often does during a case but instead found him in the guest room with Mia curled into his chest and a protective arm thrown over her as they slept. Harry didn’t wake them that day or mention what he saw. Not even a few minutes later when Louis came padding out of the guest room frowning because he obviously didn’t mean to pass out there after Mia’s nightmare, but Harry just kissed him slow with more adoration and pride than he ever thought possible after witnessing his husband be not just the teacher and friend that Mia sometimes needs, but also the father.

“Is that all?” Mia asks, realizing all the items they came here for have finally been crossed off the very extensive and strategic list Harry wrote to keep them busy and out of the flat for as long as possible. Almost a whole hour has passed since Harry discreetly slipped the key to the weapons chest into his husband’s hand which should’ve been plenty of time for him to unwind and blow off some steam about his case which remains only half solved.

“Yep, all done! Time to go home,” Harry grins to himself, assuming they still have a home to go back to.

Their building is still standing on Baker Street when they arrive as Harry hoped it would be, but it’s the incredibly serene and self-satisfied grin Louis is wearing when they get there that makes Harry raise an eyebrow.

“Good target practice session?” he teases with a glance at the new bullet hole shot in the dead center of the daisy painting they now own since they definitely can’t give it back to Mrs. Hudson now. Louis doesn’t even answer him before kissing him hello with a bit more enthusiasm than Harry was expecting after only an hour apart.

“That target practice session was just what I needed. You are a genius.”

“Wait a minute,” Harry says in the middle of another energetic kiss he has to pull back from to see his husband properly. “You have a plan to catch the robbers? You solved the case?” It’s as if Harry’s heart is melting inside his chest when Louis presses a kiss to the back of his hand with a soft, ‘ _I promised you I would._ ’

As far as promises go tonight, Louis keeps every one of them by first helping him with the food before his sister arrives, and then playing violin with Mia after dinner which sounds an awful lot like just plain playing from the sounds of it. It’s difficult to tell what exactly is going on in the living room from when he and Lottie are cleaning up in the kitchen, but whatever it is must be hilarious since Mia and Louis haven’t stopped laughing since they dropped music lessons for antagonizing Julep instead. 

He and Lottie both snort a laugh at the sound of Julep galloping away from them as they collect the four wine glasses from the table; three of them stained red at the bottom from the merlot they finished and the other still half-full of orange juice so their youngest guest didn’t feel left out.

“God, I would’ve come over for dinner a lot sooner if I knew it’d be this entertaining,” his sister-in-law chuckles, taking up her spot at the sink to wash while Harry dries.

“It can be pretty entertaining with the those two together. Those _three_ together,” he corrects after forgetting to name Julep as a culprit as well. “There’s never a dull moment these days, but I love it,” he admits.

In truth, he can’t remember a time when he had more fun than over this past month.

“I can tell,” Lottie agrees. “I don’t know how you and Lou will manage once Mia’s gone.” She says it with a fond smile and shake of her head that stops the moment Harry doesn’t smile along. Harry stares down at the wine glass in his hand feeling Lottie’s gaze burning into the side of his face the longer he avoids it. “ _Haz_ ,” she begins with a sigh in that regretful tone that already feels like a letdown despite him not saying a word. “Harry, you know that’s never going to work… my brother-”

“Would be a damned good father,” he finishes for her.

He knows he sounds more than a little defensive, but it’s only because he is. People are always telling him what they think Louis isn’t capable of. Keeping a flatmate for one, falling in love, and becoming Harry’s husband were all things that most people doubted he could do, but he did it. And just because Louis hasn’t voiced it doesn’t mean he’s never thought about them starting a family someday. Harry certainly hadn’t before Mia came into their lives.

“Lotts, I’m sorry,” he tries, feeling bad for the tone he took, but also a little proud of himself for sticking up for the person who always does the same for him.

“No, Haz, _I’m_ sorry. And you’re right,” she says giving his forearm a light squeeze. “My brother would make a great dad. I mean, just listen to him and Mia laughing now,” she smiles. Harry can’t help but smile along wishing he could record that sound and keep it forever.

Social services haven’t been able to find another close relative to take her in. Her grandmother really was the only family she had left and now that’s she’s gone Mia’s only other option is a foster home whenever she’s able to be placed in one. Their time together has an expiration date, but they don’t talk about it. Harry has been happy to ignore the fact that all of this is just temporary.

“I know she can’t stay,” Harry admits quietly, even though it kills him to say it out loud. He also knows how unfair it would be to ask something this big and life-changing of his husband. Mostly because he knows that no matter how Louis truly felt about it, he’d say yes to him without a second thought. “She’s not ours, but sometimes, I swear it feels like she is. And, technically I have no right to worry about her once she leaves, but I think I always will. I love her and I just want what’s best for her.”

The small grin Lottie is wearing makes Harry feel like even more of a fool for growing this attached to Mia in such a short amount of time.

“You think I’m insane. I sound insane,” he realizes.

“No, actually,” she smiles to herself as she hands him a fresh glass to dry. “You sound like a good parent.”

 

_Two days later. 1:46pm. 516 Orchard Street_

“Is it _really_ necessary for us to go through all this just to lure these people back here?” Niall complains in front of the only jewelry shop in the city that has a look-alike gemstone even remotely similar to the one in his pocket. “And why exactly did I have to come again?”

“Because my usual partner is otherwise indisposed at the moment with another important project.”

Niall cuts his eyes over at him before rolling them. “You mean baking?”

If Louis’ lucky, there’s a luscious strawberry shortcake being pulled out of the oven right now with his and Mia’s names all over it. “ _Yes_ , he’s baking. And, _no_ , you can’t have any.”

“That’s fine,” he quips back. “Don’t want any.”

His haughty reply would be believable if not for the brief pause he took before speaking, paired with the tell-tale microscopic twitch of his left eyebrow. And then there’s also the universal fact that _everybody_ loves Harry’s baking. “Liar,” Louis smirks, taking a step to the right to miss the totally predictable kick Niall aims at his shin. “You know that never works.”

“Let’s just go buy this thing and get it over with,” Niall sighs. “This _is_ my lunch break, you know.”

“Fine. Then stop complaining and be my bloody partner like I asked. Just- I don’t know. Do everything Harry does.” Louis is the one to aim the next kick when Niall grimaces with a prim ‘ _No, thank you_.’

Louis spots the look-alike chrysoprase stone as soon as he enters the shop. It’s in the display case directly in front of him attached to a golden chain that he has no use for. All he needs is the stone itself and he’ll have it just as soon as his ‘ _partner_ ’ stops squinting to admire the engagement rings on the _opposite_ side of the shop. Louis elbows him, making his friend fix him with a death glare before grinning kindly at the saleswoman now standing behind the case.

“Hello. How are you both? May I help you with something?”

“Uh, yes, actually,” Niall tells her as the faint scent of Chanel perfume fills his lungs. “My friend and I were hoping to buy-”

“You’re Lauren!” Louis says, making Niall glare at him once more for being interrupted and the women blink over at him instead. “Inspector Liam Payne’s Lauren, correct?”

She seems startled by such a quick change of topic, but also quite flattered by the idea of belonging to Liam in some way.

“Oh. Uh- Yes. I- I guess I am,” she grins to herself with a confused look down at her nametag-less shirt once her blush fades. And man, Liam wasn’t kidding about her eyes being beautiful. “But, I forgot my nametag this morning so how did you-?”

As if Louis would need one.

“Well, statistically speaking, there must be countless people named Lauren in this world, but only _one_ could live in this city, wear your brand of perfume, have approximately half a centimeter of natural dark brown roots when the rest has recently been dyed a much lighter chestnut, and wear the exact shade of concealer I’ve seen on Liam’s shirt collar for the past few weeks to try and mask the love bites you like to leave along his neck,” Louis beams. “Odds are one in a million. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Louis.”

“ _O-Oh._ ” Lauren reaches out to meet him half-way in a hand shake and only looks slightly bewildered. “It’s very nice to meet you too. Liam’s mentioned you a lot.”

“Really? What’d he say? We’ve known each other for years, you know.”

“Uh, he says you’re an _actual_ genius and that if our paths were ever to cross you’d probably do… whatever it is you just did.”

“Aww. Well, I simply pay attention, but that means a lot coming from him,” Louis beams. “Now, this is Niall. Don’t know if you’ve heard of him too, but we’re actually here today because we need your help to catch a group of professional, murderous robbers and put them behind bars where they belong.”

“Yes, Liam has mentioned him as well,” she chuckles. “And okay. Er- I think,” Lauren tentatively agrees after a long pause where Niall just continues staring at him with a flat face. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“Lovely of you to ask,” he says, understanding more and more why Liam likes her so much. “I need this necklace to use as bait for the robbers I mentioned earlier, and my friend here hasn’t said so but he wants to propose to his girlfriend, Amanda, as he has for about the past five and a half months, so if you could also be so kind as to help him out with finally choosing a ring today, that’d be _great_.”

Lauren takes in that sudden burst of information with a furrowed brow that only smooths once she realizes there was an engagement mentioned in all that. “Oh my goodness, Niall. Is that true? That’s so wonderful! I’d be honored to help.”

Louis takes his friend’s glaring as a thank you.

He and Niall each leave the jewelry shop with two small bags and a good luck blessing from Lauren that neither of them truly needs to catch criminals or finally get up the courage to ask someone to spend the rest of their lives together. Louis thumbs at the wedding band on his finger remembering the moment it happened for him and Harry. It was one of the best decisions of Louis’ life and one he’s never been more sure of. Just like his decision to stop off at the music shop he passes on the way to Baker Street, able to think of at least one surprisingly talented little girl who lives there who isn’t quite as annoying as she once seemed, and who coincidentally, would love a violin of her own.

*

Louis walks through the door of their flat feeling just as excited about Mia’s first violin as he was when his parents brought one home for him. He heads to the kitchen in search of her and Harry only to realize they’re not there once he arrives and the room doesn’t smell of freshly baked cake like he was expecting. All the ingredients for it are still sitting on the countertop untouched, which is strange knowing his husband’s immense love of baking and Mia’s immense love of all things sweet.

When Louis finally does find one of them it’s Harry, but he’s not in their bedroom like Louis would’ve guessed. He’s in the guest room with Julep who’s peacefully napping at the foot of the bed, but oddly enough, Mia’s not there with them. Louis wants to tell his husband all about his great afternoon, but stops the moment he notices Harry folding up Mia’s clothing and placing them inside of her suitcase instead of a drawer. Something’s not right. He could feel it as soon as he stepped into the room and that was before he saw the look on his husband’s face.

“Babe? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m okay. I’m fine,” he lies, and not even very well. Harry can hardly even meet his eyes. “Don’t worry. Mia’s fine too. She’s actually out with your sister right now. They wanted ice cream and pedicures,” he grins sadly.

“And girls day upset you this much? Doesn’t sound too bad to me,” Louis jokes. He sets down the things he’s holding to gently hold his husband’s face instead even though he tries to turn it away so the dried tear tracks beneath his eyes go unnoticed. His cheeks are still a bit pink and the green of his eyes is much glossier than usual in a way that hurts Louis to see, and yet he’s still the most beautiful person Louis has ever seen. Even when he’s been crying. “What happened, love?” he asks in a more serious tone.

Harry sighs like he doesn’t want to answer but finally does so after a glance at the suitcase on the guest bed. _Mia’s_ bed.

“Social services called after you left...” Louis figured as much but didn’t want to give voice to his own fears. “They found a foster placement for Mia. It’s a couple across town who have agreed to be her temporary guardians. Everyone says they’re great. Really good people. Never had kids of their own so they may even consider her for adoption.”

Louis listens to all of it but all his brain really registers is the part about Mia going to live with someone else. Just imagining all her stuff gone from this room makes his chest uncomfortably tight. From what his husband has said, the other couple now taking her in sounds great. Even better if they’re willing to adopt her in time and give her a real future. This is all spectacular news to come home to, but for some reason, it feels like the absolute worst. All along, this arrangement was only supposed to be temporary. It was only supposed to be for a few weeks at most, but somewhere along the line Louis forgot that. It seems Harry did too.

Mia wasn’t always very high on Louis’ list. She definitely wasn’t Louis’ favorite person because that title has always belonged to Harry. But now, Louis finds himself wondering if it really is possible to have multiple favorites after all, because the thought of losing either of them sort of makes Louis feel like he’s drowning. What’s even more of a shock is he’s not quite sure _when_ that happened. He just sort of woke up one day and Mia was his new best friend kind of like the day he woke up two years ago and realized he had fallen in love.   

“I, uh… haven’t exactly told Mia yet,” Harry continues, going back to packing up her things on autopilot to hide the way his eyes are watering all over again. “Um, I thought maybe we could talk to her together? You know, really explain what’s going on before they pick her up tomorrow morning.” All Louis wants tomorrow morning is a stack of pancakes, a strong cup of tea, and Mia sitting across from them as usual.

“Yeah, Haz. Of course. Whatever you think is best,” Louis says, unsure if he has ever seen his husband more heartbroken than when he agrees to letting Mia go, but he also grins to himself knowing that sinking feeling in Harry’s stomach is just temporary. “We’ll talk to her and explain what’s going on when she gets back,” he nods. “But, while we’re at it, we should probably talk to social services and the couple as well and break the bad news.”

“What bad news?” he asks. Harry’s forehead is all crinkled as his hands still around the shirt he’s folding. His frown only deepens when he notices Louis’ grin widen from watching him. “Lou, what are you talking about?”

“Well, I just think it might be a bit awkward sending Mia off to a foster home across the city when she already has a perfectly good home right here. With you and me. Why take her away from all that when she’s so happy where she is?”

Even as the words leave Louis’ mouth, his heart is pounding in his chest. His husband is silent for a very long time, closing his eyes and taking measured breaths like even the thought of what he’s proposing sounds too good to be true.

“Babe,” he breathes. “You do realize what you’re saying, right? You- You know what that would mean? For us. For her.”

There’s a new hopefulness in his husband’s voice and also in his eyes that lets Louis know this is yet another one of those big decisions in his life. And despite being scared out of his mind about it, just like all the decisions before, he’s knows without a doubt he’s making the right one.

“I, uh… I can’t promise much,” Louis says mostly to his feet. “I’ve never really thought of myself as a dad before, but I know you’ll be amazing at it. You already are.” He can’t think of a person better suited for the job, but he doesn’t get to say any of that before Harry’s lips are on his in a tear-filled kiss that sends them stumbling back from the force and love behind it.  

“ _You’re_ amazing at it,” Harry whispers when he pulls back. “You’re going to make an _excellent_ father, Louis. I just know it.”

For once, that’s something Louis’ not so sure about, but Harry believes in him and he believes they can do this, so for now, that’s all that really matters.

“I can’t believe Mia gets to stay and we’re going to be parents. Like, _real_ ones!” Harry exclaims just before another excited kiss.

Louis can’t really believe it either. So much has happened this afternoon that he can hardly keep it all straight between meeting Liam’s Lauren, Niall about to be a married man, and his idea to finally put an end to this case. And, speaking of the case since Harry is back to being his partner…

“Oh- Hey, I almost forgot to tell you,” Louis says pulling back just enough to see Harry clearly. “I got the fake stone I told you about. Want to help me set the trap?” he smirks.

“Of course,” he smiles. “But, Lottie and Mia should be back soon so I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.”

That’s okay, because for the trap Louis’ setting, they don’t even need to leave the flat.

“We have _plenty_ of time,” he assures his husband while peppering kisses along his jawline. “All we need is your laptop and picture of the real stone to shop around and get those robbers right where we want them.”

“Mmmm, and where is that exactly?” Harry chuckles.

“The Queen’s Gallery Museum at Buckingham Palace.”

“Wait a minute. Let me get this straight,” Harry snorts after Louis’ mumbled, ‘ _too late’_. “You want to lure actual robbers into a hoax viewing of a mythical gemstone at _Buckingham Palace_?”

“What? Why not?” he frowns in his own defense. “It’s one of the best guarded places in the city if not the entire world, it’s the perfect setting to reveal something as valuable and coveted as The Cintamani Stone, and plus, I restored every piece of The Queen’s artwork that was stolen from there two years ago _and_ caught the idiot who did it, so she owes me.”

“Yes, I was there. And she said to let her know if there’s ever anything she can ever do to _thank_ you.”

Aiding in a mass arrest by letting him stage a fake exhibit reveal in her home sounds like thanks to him.

\--------------------

_One Year Later. Wednesday. 7:06am. 221b Baker Street. London._

In a not so shocking turn of events, Louis was actually right about The Queen’s fond appreciation of him and didn’t mind at all that he used her palace as a prop in his master plan, which he was _also_ right about. The robbers came running after just a whisper of the stone’s reappearance thanks to Harry posing as a geologist online and making claims to the scientific community about its supernatural properties. They showed up at the palace the night before the big reveal and Liam’s team was there as a welcoming party, stopping them before they could hurt anybody else or take the fake stone.

The real one catches Harry’s eye in the display box on top of their mantel. Mia’s grandfather was the one who really unearthed it. It doesn’t belong to him and Louis. Technically, it belongs to Mia who right now just sees it as the pretty stone her grandmother used to hide away so until she’s old enough to know its story and decide if it’s worth all the fuss its created over the years, they’ll keep it safe for her.

Harry scrolls up his professional blog to the other cases and mysteries they’ve solved since stopping the dangerous people after The Cintamani Stone, grinning as he switches over to his new equally-popular personal blog and the post he’s been working on since breakfast, _The Mysterious Disappearance of the Sparkly Pink Lunch Box._

“Haz! I can’t find it!” Someone shouts from somewhere in the flat, making Harry stifle yet another laugh into his hand because his husband who is literally the greatest detective on Earth has been losing his shit all morning because Mia’s lunch box wasn’t in the kitchen where he left it yesterday.

“Its gotta be here somewhere, babe! Just keep looking!” Harry shouts back, getting a defeated groan in response so he stands to go help in the search. If Harry knows their five-year-old daughter as well as he thinks he does, that lunch box was smuggled into her room to become a makeshift toy sometime last night. And his guess turns out to be completely right two minutes later when it’s found under her bed with a stuffed seahorse from last week’s aquarium visit lying inside it.

“ _Oh, yeah_ ,” Mia smiles when Louis holds it up and then raises an eyebrow at her. “I forgot I put it there!”

Louis rubs at his left temple with a weary sigh. “Yes, but _why_ is it in here at all?” he asks. “I mean, what was wrong with leaving it in the kitchen where it belongs? And why is Sam the Seahorse inside of it? What purpose does _that_ serve?”

“He wanted to go swimming last night so he needed a pool,” Mia explains like that should’ve been obvious.

“Um, he’s a _seahorse_ as in of the _sea,"_ Louis says in the same fashion. "Doesn’t that mean he swims all the time?”

Mia’s expression now perfectly matches Louis when she looks at him like he’s crazy. “Um, _no_?”

“Alright!” Harry claps his hands together to interrupt yet another of their infamous stare-offs. “The lunch box has been found. Great job, you two. Mia, go grab your backpack while I fix your lunch so your dad can walk you to sch-” Harry says just as the sound of his and Louis’ phones vibrating in unison makes them all freeze.

Harry digs into his back pocket, but isn’t fast enough to read the new message before his husband can.

“It’s Liam! Plan B!” Louis announces before they all take off in different directions; Mia, to grab all her school things, Harry to help her take it all downstairs to Mrs. Hudson who will now complete the school run, and Louis to tell Liam they’re on the way and also to grab his coat.  

Harry drops a kiss to Mia’s right temple when they’re standing outside Mrs. Hudson’s door. “Love you. Have a good day, love,” he tells her, stepping back for Louis to do the same.  

He stoops down to her level and Mia locks her arms around his neck in a way that still warms Harry’s heart even after all this time witnessing their little hugs. It’s the same phenomenon he experiences every evening when they play violin after Louis helps her with her homework or fun days where Louis randomly decides to join them on their adventures around the city and insists on holding both their hands. Harry never knew three people could be so happy. 

“Love you. See you after school, yeah?” Louis says, kissing her in the same spot that Harry did before letting her skip off to help Mrs. Hudson finish packing up her lunch. He watches their daughter for a moment before letting the door close and then turning to face Harry with a bright smile that ignites that familiar rush and excitement that only comes from doing what they do best.

“Ready, partner?” his husband asks before holding open the door to the building. Harry starts walking, but doesn’t dare cross the threshold without a kiss that sends adrenaline pumping even faster through their veins.

“Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> I loved writing this second installment so much! Thanks for reading it if you do. Also, thank you so, so much to Tabby for being the absolute best!  
> Seriously, the BEST! <3
> 
> Please share this [ rebloggable fic post](http://all-these-larrythings.tumblr.com/post/175062561831/a-study-in-love-part-2-21k-by) if you liked it!


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